Politics: Onward from New Hampshire

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
Sam, the gentleman's credibility on many of his factual assertions has been directly challenged. Further, his words have been characterized, by many in the press and on the side of the Loyal Opposition, as standing for the proposition that the Bush admin fucked up royally. So, first, his tendency to say what he perceives as being needed to best serve his current situation is very relevant right now as he sells his book and finances his retirement, and, second, the "screeching" is as much against the Brad DeLongs and Kevin Drums of the world drawing their conclusions for the benefit of their election spin as for the actual existence of Clarkes words. You know this.

How odd, that you would so lightly impugn the credibility of a Republican (ex-)government official. I thought you were disinclined to call people liars, but I guess that only cuts one way.

And how odd that only those on other side of the political spectrum "draw[] their conclusions for the benefit of their election spin." Come to think of it, that's just like calling them liars, isn't it? We already know that Kevin Drum is a "whore," not that we need any basis for that or anything, so maybe it's a short step to call him a "liar" too.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
How odd, that you would so lightly impugn the credibility of a Republican (ex-)government official. I thought you were disinclined to call people liars, but I guess that only cuts one way.

No, I indicated that his credibility has been called into question through factual assertions from others that contradict his. For that reason, the credibility of all involved is an issue. Even his. I continue to believe that, when trying to discern who is telling the truth in these situations, you need to know the motivations behind the statements. You think we should discount those?

And how odd that only those on other side of the political spectrum "draw[] their conclusions for the benefit of their election spin." Come to think of it, that's just like calling them liars, isn't it? We already know that Kevin Drum is a "whore," not that we need any basis for that or anything, so maybe it's a short step to call him a "liar" too.

If I were referring to Ann Coulter's take on this (while admiring her humor), I would concede that her whoredom is equal to the lefty pundits, and take that into account. I try not to link to the assertions of people of her ilk as containing anything of real substance, in a factual way. To the extent that they fail to provide hard data themselves, but only comment on that hard data, they don't add anything to the debate. But, for the same reason you revile the effectiveness of a Rush, I dislike what the Drums and Iglesias do to the national debate. They all provide cover to people who make up their minds based on something other than their own analysis of the hard data. I don't accuse you or others on this board of that - but, like the audience of the Rushes, a lot of votes are decided based on their opinions, which are colored by their political leanings.

[bilmore]

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by bilmore
Here's the pertinent part in my mind:

"January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. They were also briefed on these series of issues that had not been decided on in a couple of years.

And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, mid-January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent. . . .

I guess the contradiction in this statement is that he uses the term "vigorously pursue"? If not I guess I miss why this is pertinent. At any rate, vigourousness is in the eye of the beholder, and frankly I can't call the guy's integrity into question because he used the term "vigorous" but now disagrees with the admin's policy.

I don't think Clarke has ever said terrorism wasn't an important issue to the admin. I think he's saying it wasn't important enough. After chairing many cabinet level working group meetings during the Clinton admin, Clarke's staff was removed by Rice, who also said he as counterterrorism czar needed to work his policy recommendations out at the deputy level (and thus the proposals would then have to work their way through another level of review at the principal level before reaching the president).

Clarke has contrasted this deemphasis to the activities of the Clinton admin at the time of the foiling of the '99 plot to blow up LAX. There was a principal-level meeting almost every day, at which each dept head was asked what they were doing to stop terorrist attacks. This made each of them go back to their subordinates and shake the tree for info, which Clarke points out might have shaken loose the FBI info about foreigners wanting to learn how to fly planes but not land them, among other clues.

It was Rice's prerogative to use Clarke in this way, of course. I just wish we could hear her testimony as to why she felt that doing things her way would be better.

The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.

"Those issues" he lists as being on the table are aiding the Northern Alliance, which the Clinton admin had talked about (along with attacking the Taliban directly) but didn't feel that they had the juice as an outgoing admin, Pakistan, who was ignoring the sanctions against teh Taliban, and Uzbekistan, which I admit I know nothing about. AFAIK no action was taken on any of those fronts prior to 9/11. How does that indicate that the Bush admin was getting stuff done, contrary to what Clarke is saying now?

edited for spelling

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by bilmore
No, I indicated that his credibility has been called into question through factual assertions from others that contradict his.

Out of curiosity, what are these? A link to an article is sufficient, you don't need to mount the arguments yourself. I just haven't seen much besides the Scott McCllellan hemming and hawing and the Cheney "he was out of the loop" stuff.

[The Larry Davis Experience]

screwed-up duplicate post. sorry.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
I guess the contradiction in this statement is that he uses the term "vigorously pursue"? If not I guess I miss why this is pertinent. At any rate, vigourousness is in the eye of the beholder, and frankly I can't call the guy's integrity into question because he used the term "vigorous" but now disagrees with the admin's policy.

I think that this part:

------------------------------------------------------
JIM ANGLE: You're saying that the Bush administration did not stop anything that the Clinton administration was doing while it was making these decisions, and by the end of the summer had increased money for covert action five-fold. Is that correct?

CLARKE: All of that's correct.

. . . .

ANGLE: So, just to finish up if we could then, so what you're saying is that there was no — one, there was no [Clinton] plan; two, there was no delay; and that actually the first changes since October of '98 were made in the spring months just after the [Bush] administration came into office?

CLARKE: You got it. That's right.
------------------------------------------------------------
belies his claim that there was a failure of vigor, or at least belies his assertions of those claims now. Seems to me to be directly in opposition to "they weren't doing much about it", which is how I translate his criticisms.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
Out of curiosity, what are these? A link to an article is sufficient, you don't need to mount the arguments yourself. I just haven't seen much besides the Scott McCllellan hemming and hawing and the Cheney "he was out of the loop" stuff.

Concur. The sands have shifted quickly enough that I can't keep 'em straight without a scorecard, and the ones that I do remember aren't really challenges to "factual assertions" but the allegations of bias or inetptitutde.

As an aside, looks like Clarke gave an interview to that sissified liberal publication Salon (click-through of annoying ad required). Clarke opines that the Administration is trying to bait him by ignoring the larger points that he's making -- and trying to drag him into the weeds on littler stuff. Nevertheless, he can't help himself. Some responses to the Administration attacks over the last day or two:

On McClellan's disingenuous statement that Clarke timed the book to come out on the Iraq war anniversary:

I wanted the book to come out much earlier, but the White House has a policy of reviewing the text of all books written by former White House personnel -- to review them for security reasons. And they actually took a very long time to do that. This book could have come out much earlier. It's the White House that decided when it would be published, not me. I turned it in toward the end of last year, and even though there was nothing in it that was not already obviously unclassified, they took a very, very long time.

On Cheney's assertion that Clarke wasn't "in the loop" on the War on Terror:

I was in the same meetings that Dick Cheney was in, during the days after 9/11. Condi Rice and Dick Cheney appointed me as co-chairman of the interagency committee called the "Campaign Committee" -- the "campaign" being the war on terrorism. So I was co-chairing the interagency process to fight the war on terrorism after 9/11. I don't think I was "out of the loop."

On Cheney's assertion that Clarke wasn't successful in fighting terror in the 90s:

It's possible that the vice president has spent so little time studying the terrorist phenomenon that he doesn't know about the successes in the 1990s. There were many. The Clinton administration stopped Iraqi terrorism against the United States, through military intervention. It stopped Iranian terrorism against the United States, through covert action. It stopped the al-Qaida attempt to have a dominant influence in Bosnia. It stopped the terrorist attacks at the millennium. It stopped many other terrorist attacks, including on the U.S. embassy in Albania. And it began a lethal covert action program against al-Qaida; it also launched military strikes against al-Qaida. Maybe the vice president was so busy running Halliburton at the time that he didn't notice.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
No, I indicated that his credibility has been called into question through factual assertions from others that contradict his. For that reason, the credibility of all involved is an issue. Even his. I continue to believe that, when trying to discern who is telling the truth in these situations, you need to know the motivations behind the statements. You think we should discount those?

OK, fair enough. But I would give as much weight to the thought that Clarke twisted his story to sell more books as I would to the thought that Bush twisted his Iraq policy to make Halliburton rich. Which is to say practically none at all.

To the extent that they fail to provide hard data themselves, but only comment on that hard data, they don't add anything to the debate.

I just think that's so untrue. There's a lot of stuff out there. A good blog distills what's going on, and places it in context.

But, for the same reason you revile the effectiveness of a Rush, I dislike what the Drums and Iglesias do to the national debate. They all provide cover to people who make up their minds based on something other than their own analysis of the hard data. I don't accuse you or others on this board of that - but, like the audience of the Rushes, a lot of votes are decided based on their opinions, which are colored by their political leanings.

I think it's absurd to compare Limbaugh and Drum or Yglesias. He's has more entertainment skills in his little finger than both of them combined. But they've picked a medium in which they can and will be quoted and tested by those on the other side, and it makes their output crucially different. And both of them link to the things they're discussing.

I'd love to live in a world in which I just analyze hard data myself, but, e.g., airfare to Iraq is expensive. I count on others to mediate for me. That doesn't mean I believe whatever I read.

When you call Drum a "whore," I think you are way, way off-base. After that comment, it's frankly hard for me to believe that you've spent much time looking at his blog. I have a similar reaction to your sniping about Josh Marshall, but since you almost never back it up I've given up trying to engage you on it. What I don't understand is how you can get all sanctimonious with me when I repeat that others have called Aznar and the PP liars, and then you can turn around and slam Drum that way. Sharpton calls Gephardt black, if you ask me.

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by bilmore
Seems to me to be directly in opposition to "they weren't doing much about it", which is how I translate his criticisms.

It's easy to impugn someone's cred if you get to translate his criticisms. As I wrote in my post, I don't think he's saying that they didn't do much. He's saying they didn't do enough.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
I think that this part:

------------------------------------------------------
JIM ANGLE: You're saying that the Bush administration did not stop anything that the Clinton administration was doing while it was making these decisions, and by the end of the summer had increased money for covert action five-fold. Is that correct?

CLARKE: All of that's correct.

. . . .

ANGLE: So, just to finish up if we could then, so what you're saying is that there was no — one, there was no [Clinton] plan; two, there was no delay; and that actually the first changes since October of '98 were made in the spring months just after the [Bush] administration came into office?

CLARKE: You got it. That's right.
------------------------------------------------------------
belies his claim that there was a failure of vigor, or at least belies his assertions of those claims now. Seems to me to be directly in opposition to "they weren't doing much about it", which is how I translate his criticisms.

I don't see a tension between any of this and the excerpts I've seen from his book. It may be inconsistent with the way some people are reporting his book, but it seems to me that when a book comes out and reporters are breathlessly describing the juicy bits, they almost certainly haven't read it. They've had an intern skim quickly for the juicy bits, which then get wrenched out of context.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
OK, fair enough. But I would give as much weight to the thought that Clarke twisted his story to sell more books as I would to the thought that Bush twisted his Iraq policy to make Halliburton rich. Which is to say practically none at all.

Well, we differ there.

I just think that's so untrue. There's a lot of stuff out there. A good blog distills what's going on, and places it in context.

A "good" blog probably does that. However, "good" seems to be in the eyes of the beholder, as is "context", and "distill". I can have a lot of respect for various bloggers who come down on both sides of the political spectrum at times, but the ones who always spin and contextualize to benefit one side just don't seem valuable to me.

I think it's absurd to compare Limbaugh and Drum or Yglesias. He's has more entertainment skills in his little finger than both of them combined. But they've picked a medium in which they can and will be quoted and tested by those on the other side, and it makes their output crucially different. And both of them link to the things they're discussing.

And no one dissects what Rush says? Uh huh. And, he does state his sources of info, from what I've heard. But, point is, he, and they, are completely predictable - you already know which side of an argument they will come down on before they do it.

When you call Drum a "whore," I think you are way, way off-base. After that comment, it's frankly hard for me to believe that you've spent much time looking at his blog. I have a similar reaction to your sniping about Josh Marshall, but since you almost never back it up I've given up trying to engage you on it. What I don't understand is how you can get all sanctimonious with me when I repeat that others have called Aznar and the PP liars, and then you can turn around and slam Drum that way. Sharpton calls Gephardt black, if you ask me.

I'll concede that "whore" is a hard word, and maybe too hard for what I'm saying. The concept I'm trying to communicate is of one who spins and explains and contextualizes specifically in order to cast an issue, and its discussion, in the way most suitable to their pre-existing philosophy. Like I said above, I have more respect for bloggers and pundits and explainers who come down on both sides at times, based on the merits of the issue at hand far more than their overall personal philosophy.

As for links re: factual contradictions, well, I'm leaving now, and can't. But, from my hotel later, maybe . . .

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
I don't see a tension between any of this and the excerpts I've seen from his book. It may be inconsistent with the way some people are reporting his book, but it seems to me that when a book comes out and reporters are breathlessly describing the juicy bits, they almost certainly haven't read it. They've had an intern skim quickly for the juicy bits, which then get wrenched out of context.

I'm confused. Are you saying that Clarke's book does not stand for the proposition that Bush screwed up royally? If not, maybe we're arguing about . . . nothing.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Gregg Easterbrook:

• During yesterday's hearing of the Kean commission on 9/11, two important points--overlooked in the coverage--came from former Defense Secretary William Cohen, a Republican who worked for a Democrat.
  
  First, Cohen noted, for all the 20-20 hindsight now being focused on Al Qaeda, when Bill Clinton actually tried doing something about bin Laden's organization--the August 1998 cruise missile attacks on camps in Afghanistan--there was general anger. Commentators denounced Clinton as a warmonger; editorialists wrung their hands about firing ordnance into a neutral country; opponents said Clinton was engaged in a "wag the dog" exercise--the movie of that name coming out about the same time. Set aside that the 1998 strike against Al Qaeda camps was a letdown from a military standpoint. What should be remembered is that when a president attempted preemptive action against the worst terror threat to the Western world, the response was condemnation--much coming from the lefty types who now taunt George W. Bush by saying he should focus more on bin Laden.
  
  Second, Cohen noted, when Saddam Hussein threw out U.N. inspectors, leading to the December 1998 joint U.S.-U.K. air assault on Iraqi weapons facilities and Republican Guard positions, there was fury. Hollywood types were particularly anti-Clinton regarding the December 1998 Iraq strikes, but the worst criticism came from the right, which charged that Clinton was inventing a war in order to distract public attention from the Monica impeachment hearings. Many of the same Republicans and conservatives who now depict Saddam as such a threat to U.S. national interests that invasion was justified then depicted Iraq as such a minor concern that the air strikes were just wagging the dog. Now bear in mind that unlike the failed 1998 raid against Al Qaeda, the 1998 bombing of Iraq was extremely successful. As yours truly noted last October, David Kay's report found that Iraq's banned-weapons programs pretty much was kaput after 1998: The bombing was highly accurate and benefited from the reports of the U.N. inspectors, who provided details on exactly what and where to hit.
  
  So as you continue to listen to the outpouring of hindsight, just remember that people protested when Bill Clinton tried to stop bin Laden early, and remember that many of the same people today defending the invasion of Iraq roundly criticized prior action against the same country.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
I'm confused. Are you saying that Clarke's book does not stand for the proposition that Bush screwed up royally? If not, maybe we're arguing about . . . nothing.

No, I was referring specifically to your particular quotes from that briefing. I don't see any tension between them and the parts of Clarke's book that I've see quoted.